Health Check-Ups & Prevention

Working as a Nurse Made it Hard to Be Healthy | The Spark Transformation Story

(tense undertones) I came from a really poor family and we were trying to spend
as little money as possible on groceries. We did not eat protein, barely ever. Vegetables, protein is a
lot more expensive to eat. – I ate a lot. And I love to cook. And it wasn’t exactly healthy food. I don’t think I actually
ever really thought about how my lifestyle and my bad habits were affecting my children. – [Man] Melissa Spark take one. – We were always poor, so we
always ate unhealthy food. – It was a lot of potatoes and gravy and. – Carbohydrates. – Lots of cheese. – Pasta. – Not whole grains or any of
the good stuff that I eat now. – That’s the way I ate my whole life. I didn’t know what healthy
really was at that point. Even being in nursing school,
like we don’t talk about a lot of nutrition. I worked a lot of hours to
put myself through school. And at work there’s sweets everywhere. It’s kind of hard to avoid people that are offering you brownies
and cupcakes and ice cream. And I would come home and at the end of the
day you’re exhausted. You just worked 12 hours and all you wanna really
do is relax and sleep. So there wasn’t really much working out or eating healthy for me at that point. I never really thought I was overweight. It wasn’t until I went to try on dresses for my nursing ball that
I started feeling like, oh none of these pretty
dresses really fit nice. I had like back fat. They were gorgeous dresses. They just didn’t look
great to me on my body. I just wanted to feel
pretty in a dress at a ball. I kind of evaluated my life at that point. What am I eating? What is healthy? I was done with the bloating
and I had stomach problems. Of all the different unhealthy foods would upset my stomach
so I’m always in pain. I felt physically exhausted all the time. Just kind of down. A lot of my family, like I
said there’s no one around me that had a fit lifestyle,
so they didn’t understand. – I always thought Melissa
loved herself and loved her body and when she told me she
wanted to lose weight I looked at her like are you crazy, you’re beautiful, you’re thin. I didn’t think she needed to change. – At my heaviest I was 170 pounds. I just decided it was
time to invest in myself. So I actually took an extra
year in my nursing degree just so I could pay for the food that I wanted to start eating. So I started eating a lotta chicken. I switched out my pasta for zucchini. And it helped me lose
probably about 20 pounds. No matter what after
work I would come home instead of watching TV for
half an hour to an hour I would do a half hour workout. It was a lot of little changes
over a long period of time. – Melissa came to visit me one weekend and her brother come up for the night. And Melissa’s like “I want
you guys to join this with me. “The Body Building Transformation
Challenge My Fit Squad.” She said “I could join alone, “but I don’t think I can
do it without you guys. “We need to do this together.” – I had to convince them. It wasn’t very hard to
get my brother going, like come on you can do it. Think about the prize at the end. But my mother, she was a
bit harder to convince. – I was very reluctant. I did not want to start
this yet in my life. – Probably took me a good
hour of like come on Mother, you can do this, you can power through, we can win this as a team. – I made so many excuses. And she wouldn’t give it up. She just talked us all into it. And we signed up and took
our pictures that night. – Everyone looked at me in my family as like the skinny. Because I did know how to
dress and hide my extra weight. – She took her before pictures and I was like that’s not your body. And she said, “Yes it is,
I hide it under clothes. “I am unhealthy and I eat the
wrong foods the same as you. “And I wanna do this together.” And I was in shock. – I was ready. I was ready for like a real challenge. My diet changed completely. And I finally put aside some
money to hire a nutritionist. – She helped her brother
during the challenge by hiring a nutritionist and
got him a gym membership. She would call me every day. And tell me “It’s time to go work out Mom. “Get going. “Come on Mom, you can do this.” She just kept us going. Well when the competition was over and they were supposed
to post the results, we looked online and
couldn’t find anything that said who won. – I was really anxious and waiting and then when that day went
by I was kinda like sad and I was like, (sighs)
I did everything I could. And someone else managed to do something more extreme than I did. Then good on them. But I’m a very competitive
person so I wanted to know who beat my team. I wanna see this. – I knew she transformed like completely. To see her before and after was wow. We all thought Melissa had this one. – So I e-mailed customer service and like I can’t find the winners, have they been posted yet. And they’re like “Yeah
sure, here’s the link.” And then I scrolled down on
the link and the first face I saw was my own. And I just started losing my mind. I called my mother, I could barely type in
the numbers on the phone. I’m just like screaming,
we won, we actually won. – I was like what? – And then she started freaking out and. – I just started to cry. I was so proud. – I started at 170. At my lightest I would’ve been 125, 124. And I mean what you’ve
done with your body, that’s hard work and you feel empowered. You feel better emotionally, physically. Maybe even spiritually. I like being strong. I want to be the fittest
version of myself, my best self. – [Jennie] I see her now and she’s just shines everywhere she goes. She’s so, so outgoing, so confident. She’s such an inspiration. (uplifting music)

Even though I am also a male nurse….. frankly saying my friends….nursing jobs are really stressfull,,, but after the job when I reach my gym for workout …I forgot all the stress, depression, loneliness,,,I felt self confident , energetic better emotionally,spiritually and mentally…… guys each days are counted ,,, so please give some movements to our body………we all needed to do some workouts to keep our body fit ……..

Nothing expensive when being vegan- all the protein you need is in whole food plants. But if you have the budget for an air fryer- then that and veggies is as close to heaven one can get on this plant: SO DAMN DELICIOUS!!!

Not trying to be a hater and I'm all for being healthy, but this shouldn't be a sob story. There are a lot worse things in the world going on lol this was more comical to me the setting they put on for the video.

Good one her. Awesome commitment. The best thing any woman can do is build up some muscle, improve bone density and NEVER have to worry about getting fat again. I wasted so many years feeling fat and fearing food, I was eating so little and my stomach got full up almost instantly, yet I was heavier than ever. Now my metabolism is so fast and I can eat like a horse and it will simply grow my muscles yet make me look smaller and tighter.

Great story, but interestingly, I am about 160, and I look completely different than her. My guess is she's fairly short (I'm 5'7), when I saw her pic on the phone I thought she was going to say at least 200 lbs. Just something to consider – what you see on the scale isn't make or breaking you. People always think I'm 20-30 lbs less than I really am.

You were beautiful before just as you are now. Im in the same boat… surrounded by people that don't live healthy lifestyles.. and raise their eyebrows when I try to eat healthy. It's hard having a healthy meal with people breathing over you convincing you it's ok to eat things that harm your body. "Here have a burger, piece of cake, slice of pizza, a beer, have another and another …."

I'm 410 lbs down from 440, and I have to catch myself judging sometimes. I hear people say i was 170 and had to lose weight, and i try to remember it's not a competition. Everyone has they're own struggles, and that's ok.

Hold up. Transformation stories are nice but you are the only RN Ive found who lifts. I am wondering if I can count my work days as my rest days. I'm at the gym right now and feel good, but the vids on 'over training' and cortisol levels dont give too many straight answers.